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According to former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner, the three-month strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has reached a resolution.
"It’s over. They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It’s going on Saturday to the writers in general…it’s impossible (the rank and file writers) will turn it down. A deal has been made. They’ll be back to work very soon. I know it’s over," Eisner said live on CNBC’s "Fast Money" this evening.
Rumors of the deal have been swirling since last weekend, while Oscar organizers said they were running out of time in the search for a deal to avoid the ceremony from being affected by the strike. Last month’s Golden Globes was reduced to a press conference after the A-list nominees refused to cross the picket line and attend the glittering ceremony.
"I think this was not the time (to strike). If there was going to be a strike, it should have been three years from now when you really knew the definition of the online business and where you knew the revenues were coming. I think a lot of writers lost their deals and they will not be reinstated. I think one of the reasons that some of the companies do not have this economic problem is they cut back on a lot of those big deals," Eisner said of the strike’s bad timing.
However, Eisner didn’t go into detail regarding the terms of the agreement, but he said he expected most of the small, independent media companies affected by the strike to make some cutbacks in staff.
Since the strike began, the WGA stated several times that they would only sign an agreement that gives TV and film writers a percentage of the residuals from DVD sales and Internet downloads of programs, a market that has been raking in billions of dollars and that producers, studio heads and actors already receive.
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